The Times Before
by TheProudSinner
Summary: This story is a prequel to my canon based Kurt/Dave fic The Spaces Between. It is as of right now entirely Dave-centric and explores his struggle with his sexuality as young adolescent, all the way up to NBK.
1. Stone

It had started when Dave was ten, almost eleven. He could remember it like it was yesterday. They had taken a class field trip to Columbus to an art museum. In the front lobby there had stood an imposing statue, a replica of Michael Angelo's David. It had been quite large, towering over the crowd of sixth graders who had pooled around his legs as they waited for their guided tour to begin.

The presence of the ostentatious naked figure had caused the group of adolescents to exchange various meaningful looks. The girls had mostly giggled, glancing furtively and curiously at the statue's penis only to move in and whisper to their fellow female gawkers. The boys had largely avoided looking directly at the bared, erotic piece of stone, preferring to pretend to be above the girl's silliness, while actually appearing quite uncomfortable and exposed themselves.

But something different had happened to Dave, something that would change the course of his adolescent life, and indeed his entire life forever. Instead of being made uncomfortable by the statue, Dave had felt drawn to it, and had stared outright, unable to tear his eyes away. The stone had possessed a kind of magnetism, carved as it was in the shape of an absolutely beautiful boy. It had not been the penis that called for his attention, for it was small and far more familiar to him than to his novice female classmates. It had been everything else – the strong legs, the flat muscled chest, the tilt of the slight male hips…and that perfectly curved behind.

As his eyes grazed the figure, becoming more glued the longer he looked, Dave had felt his first real stirrings of arousal. He had felt his temperature rise. He had felt the stream of blood begin to pool in his groin and the air flowing rapidly and shallowly over his parched, swollen lips. For a moment, for one thrilling, heady moment, Dave had felt nothing but pleasure, and that now familiar primal flash of pure want. And for that one moment, it had been blissfully unencumbered, free of judgment, of value, of any kind of significance. A self contained experience of life-affirming desire, clear, pure, unadulterated, without hesitation.

Then it happened.

"Hey Karofsky stop staring. It's time to go. Besides, what are you, some kinda _fag?_"

An icy deluge of fear had submerged Dave then, drowning out all of his previous feelings of arousal and replacing them with an affect of quiet terror. On the outside Dave had laughed the moment off, quick to rejoin his classmates with a look of nonchalance on his face. But inside a horrible, hideous feeling had taken root in his body, one that would sadly never dislodge itself entirely.

He could not remember which of his male classmates had said those words to him. But it hardly mattered. Nothing would erase them from his mind. Nothing could stop the ringing in his ears of that one horrid, soul-crushing word: FAG. It had set his teeth on edge. It had knocked the breath from his body. At the sound of it, a dark shadow had taken up residence in his mind, and Dave would never again be perfectly whole.

He remembered nothing else from that field trip. For the rest of the day he had wandered through the museum in a state of numbness, seeing none of what was in front of him, hearing nothing that the tour guide or any of his teachers said. Instead, he heard only the panicked hollow assurances of his mind as it began its' years long process of placing him in a perpetual state of denial.

_**It's not true. It's NOT. It was just a one-off thing. It doesn't mean anything. It's not true. You're not really…gay. You're not. It can't be true. It just can't be. It's not. I won't let it be. I won't let it!**_

And so had begun the mantra that would haunt Dave almost daily for years to come. It had quickly become a constant, involuntary refrain in the back of his mind, issuing forth with greater emphasis each time a moment like the encounter with statue came upon him.

Although predictably there would be plenty of other moments as puberty descended on him with full force, Dave had never again allowed himself to drop his guard in front of other people, the way he had at the museum. He had learned that lesson well enough the first time. He knew if other people even began to suspect, his ability to function would be severely compromised. And he was too good at protecting himself to let that happen. Whatever battles may have been waged internally, Dave's exterior remained one of perfect sexual stoicism in public for years to come.

Inside, the life of his desire fought a grueling painful fight.

Outside, however, it was almost as if David was made of stone.


	2. The Up Button

**The scene in _Queer as Folk_ that I reference in this chapter is real and it's at the very end of ep. 2x19 "Bowling for Equality."**

Dave felt lucky that at least he had been home alone when it happened the first time. At that point, his parents had still been in the habit of walking into his room without knocking, and that would have made the unexpected event even more horrifying.

He had been watching TV after school one day, on the brand new set his parents bought him for his eleventh birthday, flipping channels from a reclined, totally at-ease position on his bed. He had been looking for some mindless action movie to watch as a means to take his mind off the anxiety that had been infiltrating it of late. He had been trying desperately not to think about…_that_.

It had happened to him again, a few more times after the museum, and each time his mind had scrambled furiously to shut it down. He had become better at repressing those feelings, recognizing the types of things likely to set them off, figuring out what kinds of thoughts made them retreat. It seemed manageable so far.

That was, until the explosion.

Dave had been channel surfing through the premium networks his family enjoyed, totally innocently and unsuspecting, when he stumbled upon it. He was to discover, retroactively, that it was the end of an episode of a TV show called Queer as Folk. But at the time, all he knew was that it was pornographic enough to make him feel like every cell in his body was under assault from an aching, desperate desire.

The first thing his brain registered, after he casually pressed the 'Up' button for the 40-something time, was the two men embracing in what was an obviously erotic manner. They were not kissing, and in fact were clearly having some kind of disagreement, but from their physical interactions, their relationship was blatantly intimate and sexual.

"Later," Dave heard one of the characters protest, as he moved to escape their embrace.

"Now," the other insisted, not to be swayed.

"Can't we please do this after I shower?" the shorter blonde one asked with mild annoyance, pulling away half-heartedly from the man trying to keep hold.

"I like smelling you," the taller man then said as he restrained the shorter one, whispering roughly in his ear, "not soap."

Already by the end of this short exchange, Dave could feel his breath battling to keep up with the barrage of heat and hormones flooding him. He watched, palms sweaty, groin throbbing as the blonde boy stopped struggling, clearly falling under the taller one's erotic spell. The camera swiveled in a smooth, tight circuit around the men as they stood, staring intently at one another, the tension building with painful intensity. It made Dave utterly breathless and utterly mesmerized.

Then, quite suddenly, thankfully, the taller one forcefully grabbed his companion and the two finally requited their withheld passion. The kiss was hard, hungry and unabashedly gratuitous. And it made Dave feel like his body was on _fire_, quite literally about to burst into a million aching pieces. He watched the two men devour each other, their breathing heavy and audible, their hands grasping furiously, and his mind soaked up every image and sound, transforming them into violent full-bodied shocks of throbbing pleasure.

Dave had remained paralyzed as he watched this overtly sexual display, letting it wash over him passively as his body responded of its own volition. He had simply remained still, allowing his primal responses to run unchecked through every inch and molecule of his body. That was until the taller man began aggressively undressing his partner. At this, a throb so intense it was wholly overpowering struck Dave in his abdomen, and he felt his right hand, shaking with need, move to the button on his jeans. He had changed the channel probably all of a minute ago but already he had a full on erection and it was begging him, with shocking force, for proper attention.

With surprising clumsiness, Dave finally managed to undo the button on his pants and pull down the zipper. By this point the amorous TV couple were on their knees, the smaller blonde one bereft of his shirt. Dave watched them fall into a reclined position as he moved his own hand tentatively under the waistband of his boxers. The gasps and moans of the onscreen lovers filled the air around him as Dave tentatively took hold of his engorged penis for the first time.

The sensation was strange but deeply gratifying, and as Dave continued to watch the erotic TV drama unfold, the more dominant man unzipped the smaller man's jeans and roughly cupped his crotch. At this image, Dave felt a surge in his own cock, causing him to grip it more firmly and stroke. And he couldn't help the visceral moan that issued from his own mouth at the gorgeous sensations that came over him at this action.

Easing back further, he became almost fully horizontal on his bed, gazing at his dark wooden ceiling and seeing it not at all. His mind had been imprinted by the sights and sounds of the two beautiful men devouring each other, and it was more than enough.

The act itself felt a little strange, for he had never done it before. It took a little while to develop a rhythm and it remained a bit stunted for lack of a real lubricant. But none of those things stopped the experience from feeling fantastic.

As his hand stroked, the images and sounds from the TV continued to swirl around in Dave's brain, interlaced with the occasional embellishment conjured by his own imagination. They were undoubtedly the vanilla fantasies of a young adolescent still a virgin to the world of real porn, or real sex. But their novelty and explicitness were enough to get Dave to the precipice of his first orgasm. Beautiful men, their mouths hungry for one another, topless, muscles defined but not excessive, tight jeans made tighter from throbbing erections, rubbing against one another right at the hipbones, hands stroking through hair, along arms, across backs, over bare bottoms beneath clothing. A kolidascope of visceral sensations.

And just when he was on the brink, needing only the slightest push, his mind imagined a boy – no one in particular – with a lithe figure, long legs, bright pretty eyes, and full pink lips straddling him as he lay flat on his back. With one hand in Dave's pants stoking his cock, and his mouth pressed against the soft flesh where the neck meets the jaw underneath the ear, Dave imagined the boy above him giving a firm bite as he jerked him off. The idea of the bite was just erotic enough to pull his body over the edge. Rolling slightly on his side, Dave stroked at a manic pace as he felt his balls tighten and a thick white liquid came quickly spurting out the end of his dick.

The release was so powerful, so gratifying, and at first so intense that it felt like every bit of stress in every millimeter of Dave's body had been temporarily wiped away. Rolling back onto his back, Dave simply rode the wave of endorphins flooding his brain, closing his eyes and settling into the utter relaxation of his body without protest.

However that warm, tingling, lethargic feeling could not last indefinitely. Soon enough the wheels in his brain started slowly turning once more, and with that, another equally strong wave of immense shame flooded his body. It was not the fact that he had engaged in an act of masturbation. He understood that to be deeply normal behavior for boys starting at his age.

What was not normal, and what was quickly beginning to upset him intensely, was the subject matter which had precipitated the act. He had hoped desperately that if he kept them under control, those thoughts would eventually just go away, or at least remain in the periphery. But that scene on TV had gotten under his skin, it had called out to him so intensely, had showed him without subtlety or reservation something so desperately desirable to him that it made every inch of his body ache uncontrollably with sexual need. It had taken over and Dave had succumbed without anything even resembling a fight.

And it made Dave angry. Angry that he wanted this thing he knew he could never have, this thing that he did not _want_ to desire, and which he knew would likely only get worse as time went by. If he couldn't control himself while watching TV, when he at least had the power to change the channel or turn it off, how was he going to deal in situations like P.E. locker rooms, and showers, with real naked boys?

As he lay on his bed, the TV still on but mostly forgotten, with the sight of his cum drying slowly on his dark blue comforter, something in Dave's mind temporarily succumbed to the pure fury he felt at being dealt such a hopelessly miserable hand. Because even as he began the mental vow that he would _never_ allow this to happen again, a small part of his mind just couldn't be fooled or convinced. While most of his brain was busy making a resolve about being strong and having will-power and never wavering in his commitment, some tiny corner of consciousness knew that he was lying to himself, that resistance was futile.

No matter how many layers of denial and self-determination Dave used to try to suppress the truth, some tiny corner of his brain would not be deluded. He was still going forward with his delusion, if only out of abject fear, but the truth would always be there, lurking underneath his enormous heap of futile intentions.

Bodies don't forget or let go of things that made them feel that good. It's just not how they are built. And why those things felt good to Dave, he could only begin to guess. But no matter how much he told himself he was going to stop, he knew that he was never _really_ going to stop. And as if to drive that exact point home all the more, it was at that moment that his body began asking to go again.

Instead of acquiescing Dave grabbed one of the pillows by his head, pulled it over his face and screamed violently into it for as long as he possibly could. It took a little while before he was finally all shouted out, but he did get there eventually. Dave then removed the pillow from his face so as not to suffocate, and laid it back down where it had previously resided by his head. And as he stared up at his dark ceiling he felt his hand move back to its' recently relinquished position around his dick.

The blood was already beginning to flow back in, the skin was still sensitive from the previous orgasm, achieved only minutes before, and his traitorous mind was already eager to come up with even more fantasies to begin testing out on him. As he began moving his hand delicately, Dave resolved resignedly that this would be the last one for now, because his parents were due home quite soon.

But the evening was not far off, and once he was in bed for the night, in the pitch dark, with hours upon hours of time all to himself, there would be nothing Dave could do to stop his body from asking for this from him, over and over and over again. And really, he began to wonder, how does one say 'no' to a hard-on? Especially when a bit of privacy, a hand and even a mediocre imagination was all that one needed to say 'yes.'

The privacy and the hand Dave had in sufficient amounts. As per the imagination, Dave was unfortunate enough to have _THAT _in spades. And as he submitted to a new fantasy involving two men in a steamy shower covered in slippery soap, some tiny rational part of his mind realized with resignation just how screwed he actually was.


End file.
